Jane Hartfield's Quote Quilt "Life Is Short"

Life Is Short

Jane Hartfield’s Quote Quilt

I must admit this theme was difficult for me. It was hard for me to focus and narrow down the choices for “Quote”. I really was close to the deadline without a decision.

However, one theme kept coming back to me. During the past three months, I have lost a lot of friends. Some were pretty close friends. One former coworker. Bridge players. Quilters. A very special minister in our church. It just seemed like an uncommon number of deaths. It was affecting me deeply and reminding me once again that “Life Is Short”. I also started seeing some posts on Facebook that said Life is short, take the trip, eat the cake, buy the shoes. So I decided to make that a bit more personal.

Life Is Short

Make Art

Sit on the Beach

Drink the Wine

I really don’t think this little quilt is quite up to my usual standard, but I will explain it a little more. Three of the fabrics I dye printed while in San Antonio studying with Jane Dunnewold. The black and white circles came from a fat quarter I had purchased. I painted the words on using a squeeze bottle. Boy, was that challenging. I could work on that for months and perhaps improve, but I didn’t have the time or the inclination. Then I quilted it using motifs that I felt complimented the statement. Grapes for the wine. Waves for the beach. Echo quilting for the Art.

Be sure to look for a separate post for our next theme!

Central Texas Mavens Winning Quilts at the Waco Quilt Show!

I'm not going to post photos of ALL the quilts we Central Texans entered, but I will post photos of those quilts that won ribbons.  I was very proud of our Mavens, I have to say!  Congratulations to all!

I posted on Facebook the display of the MM quilts we've made since we began "round two."  Perhaps I'll post again with those photos, but this will be about the individual quilts which won ribbons.

Our show designates quilters as either "artisan" or "master."  To be considered the latter, a quilter would have had to receive at least two first place ribbons in the past and/or taught a class (or many!) and/or quilted for compensation.  There may be other criteria, as well, but those are the ones I recall.
An artisan is everyone else.

I realized when I got home that I had omitted several quilts that were ribbon winners!  One was Judy's in the "miniature" category.  It was her Whisper Quilt from a year ago, and she named it "Jungle Beauty."

 Carolyn received a red and a blue in the "artisan art quilt" category!

 And I got the third place ribbon in the same category.

 I receive another third place ribbon for my "large pieced" artisan two-person quilt.  Another quilter quilted this for me, and she did a beautiful job of custom quilting.

 Rita received a third place ribbon in the master group quilt category.

 Judy received a red ribbon in the master art quilt category.

 And Judy received a blue ribbon in the same category.

 Rita received a third place in the "other techniques" category for her yo-yo quilt.  Below I zoomed in so that you could see the yo-yos better!

Another blue ribbon for Rita.  This was also in the "other techniques" category.  The embroidery on this quilt is exquisite!  

 
 And a red ribbon for Rita for this gorgeous quilt! This quilt Rita calls "Burgoyne Surrounded my Little Brown Bird."  This category was one person, large appliquéd.

 Kathy received a red ribbon in the "master, one person, appliquéd" wall quilt for her quilt called "Great Shoes."

Another of Kathy's with a third-place winner, also appliquéd, called "XOXOXO for Baby Jillian".

 Another of Rita's, this one a third place winner, called "Snow Days," in the "other techniques" category; it is pieced and embroidered.  Sorry the light was poor for photography, and so I couldn't get a good shot.

The Boundary Composite!

If confession is good for the soul, then here goes. 

This word acted like the two bars on one of my favorite cartoons [see the 5^th row] I used when I was teaching humor and creativity in the classroom. I had all 14 quilts in a row ready to place them in some order on the composite and I just couldn’t see a creative pattern. My boundary had become a closed box, not just 2 bars.  Rita looked over my shoulder and said look for lines and colors and faces and there it was, my bars opened. Yes, I know, each quilt makes its own heartfelt statement. For the composite, here are my thoughts as to how the rows speak.

Row one: How obvious, fences, wide open inviting views, clouds with blue sky, leading lines taking [breaking our boundaries] us off into new adventures, wonderful perspectives.

Row two: The faces row. A simple one panel cartoon is known as “economy of expression.” If a picture is worth a thousand words, these 3 images say it all. First, does the monkey really feel that boundary? Personally, I think it does. Carolyn’s quilt says it shouts, no more boundaries, no more! And then Tricia caps it off, “Boundaries, sure, but who cares!” Row two makes a powerful statement for the theme of this round. 

Row three and four: You just can’t take you eye off the color and line. Each block demands your eye to move to the next block and then to the next then back, almost as if the quilts are tied together. Gail, it was almost as if you saw the fissure in Nedra’s panel but in abstract. Kathy, I saw rain drops on the sunrise in Dee’s panel. Candace, at first I couldn’t decide if the black border was part of the quilt, then saw your signature in the corner. It ties very nicely with the blacks in Sara’s work. My eye has difficulty leaving rows 3 and 4.

Row 5: What an imaginative way to complete the composite. Karen’s open gate into the distance tells us there are no boundaries and what great perspective in a vertical image. Yes, I was very involved with Rita’s doors and I have been behind [or better said – beyond] each one of them. As we photographed each door I was reminded of what a magnificent word for this round. You proved the fact that you know no boundaries on your creativity. My cartoon character is/was trapped by only two self-imposed boundaries. Creativity and positive outlook is a great hacksaw. 

Job well done everybody!

Dee's Boundaries

Boundaries:  Slipping the Boundaries of Earth

Leaving earth and hurtling through cloud layers into a world of brightness and color was the sight awaiting me each day for 34 years when I went to work.  No matter the time zone or weather, I saw a sunrise or sunset at 36,000 feet; and very often both in the same day.

Techniques:  2 pieces of white PFD cotton fabric painted with Pebeo Transparent Paints.  One piece with more blue/purple, the other more yellow/orange.  These were cut apart and integrated at random.  The photo, which I took, of airplane wing and engine was printed onto cotton batiste from my ink jet HP printer. The quilt is 3 layers and quilted with 100 wt lavender invisafil/wonderfil. 

When I was ready to fuse the airplane image onto the painted background I thought the background looked too bright and too much going on for such a small space and the plane image was lost.  I flipped the painted piece to the back side and there was the picture I wanted! Not only was it a softer version but I liked the rawness of the exposed stitched seams.  This felt like the earthly boundary that I needed to slip past.   To add depth  and to make the exposed seams lay flat, I fused black netting over the top.  I wish I had put the netting on before quilting, then I would not have needed the Misty Fuse to adhere the netting.   This is mounted on an 11 x 14” canvas frame.

Carolyn: A Lifetime of Boundaries

I thought long and hard about this theme.  My recurring thought kept returning to the boundaries that women have faced for centuries.  After our surprising election, I made the decision to go with my gut feelings for this quilt.  I thought of all the American women who have fought for the rights of women - from Abigail Adams to Eleanor Roosevelt to Maya Angelou.  In my own 76 years, I thought about times when as a teenager,  I wore only skirts, and never jeans.  I remembered that the only career choices for women in my day were nurse, teacher or secretary.  I cringed at the memories of crude insults from some doctors at the hospital where I worked as a nurse.  I laughed at the time when I was required to have my husband's approval to open my own bank account and apply for my own credit card.  I painfully considered the time in the mid 70's when I finally became brave enough to file a sexual harassment complaint against a male co-worker.  I also thought about my female friends and their struggles.  I stood in awe of the two women from our church who, in the 1950's, became the first female elders in the Presbyterian Church.  I shared the grief of friends who had to change denominations in order to become the ministers they were called to be.  And, I thought about all of the women I never knew on whose shoulders I stand because they bravely worked for equality.

I chose a subdued pink fabric for my background.  I decided that Rosie the Riveter, that symbol of strength and can do, would be my theme.  I drew a picture of Rosie without facial features to represent all women everywhere.  I fused the gray Rosie to a green background to represent "growth."  Using Wonder Under, I fused Rosie to the pink background, colored in features with fabric pencils and dots of pink ink.  Then I machined stitched around all of her features.  Next came the bars representing boundaries we, as women, still face.  I wanted to honor the women throughout American history up through the present who have worked on behalf of female equality.  I considered many different ways to do this and finally decided to handwrite the names with fabric pencil.  If you look closely, you may even find yourself listed there.  Lastly, I fused the entire quilt with a light brown tulle to signify that our work is incomplete.  A zigzag border in pink, gray, black and green finished the piece.

Karen's Boundaries:  "Come this Way"

Boundaries: Something that points out or shows limit.

An iron gate opens to welcome you to serenity.

Hand-dyed background with minimal quilting using smoke monofilament thread.
Black Kona Cotton cut on the bias in 1/4" strips. For the rods further away I shaved off a scant 1/6th of an inch from the 1/4" strips.  I used Roxanne's glue to keep the pieces in place. I used a 1/6th" satin stitch around all edges. Facings finished the quilt.

Judy Steward- Fence Boundaries

 When I heard the theme was Boundaries I immediately thought of barb wire fences. What makes me happy about this quilt is that it also shows a road and tree lines that are boundaries.

Growing up I tangled with a few barb wire fences. The fence in this quilt is what most of ours were like. Many a baseball, badminton birdie, or kick ball was sent over one in our front  yard. Dad put some boards between two of the posts so that we could climb over it easily and the fence would not be damaged.

With 5 kids in the family we all would walk down the road to the woods by ourselves to get some alone time. The fences always gave me a sense of security and by the time I stomped down the gravel road (if I was angry) to the gate I felt better. I have so many wonderful memories of walking along fences, seeing the tree lines and feeling the sense of joy as I walked into the shade of the trees. Some of those walks were with family members and others with friends.

One road we would walk down had our forty acres were on the right and my friends land was on the left. At the end of the road was another neighbors land and they had a little house on it. The man who owned the land was named Jess and he used that little house as his workshop to make corn brooms. We loved going to visit him as he created these useful pieces of art.

I can feel the roughness of the posts, the thinness of the wire, see the staples holding the wire to the posts, smell the dampness of the woods, the coolness of the shade, the creek to cross, the road to travel. “Boundaries” good feelings and good memories.

 The designing of this quilt was easy. I painted some fabric using Jacquare Dye-na-flo and Setacolor. I pieced the sky to the grass area and cut a few pieces to give the effect of tree lines.

I added the road (not in this photo). Placing the posts was the hard part. I put 3 fabric posts on and added the other 2 by thread work. All the rest was done with quilting.

Theme For April 2017

Quote!

This should be fairly limitless - take it where you will

Boundaries - Sara

I love this word - boundaries are so important to my creating anything. I've accumulated all kinds of techniques and miles of most sorts of cotton (and other) fabrics and all of the tools and machines to use them with. It is sometimes difficult to actually create anything with so many choices. If I limit myself  and place a boundary on what techniques and media I will use (in this case 2 fabrics - black and red here - and 1 technique free form piecing) creation can start and a piece can be finished.

Several years ago I took a class with Jane Davila at Quilting Adventures. She had us limit our palette and choose one theme and size to work with for a week in order to develop a series. I was amazingly productive and made a series of tree inspired 8 by 10 inch little quilts using colors that were not part of my usual quilting palette (mostly pale yellow and browns). I was really excited at how far restrictions could take me. I was showing someone my output and she commented "sometimes you just have to get out of your box!". That person totally missed the point - I need to corral myself into a box to produce something - without parameters and boundaries my work becomes thoughts and dreams not actually anything real. This quilt is a tribute to setting creative boundaries and I call it "Boxes". It actually is a square 12 by 12 inches which is distorted in this image (I will try another picture later).

As a bonus, while I was working on this I realized that I had another piece started on this theme. It does not fit our challenge boundaries in size (nor have I completely stitched down the facings) but I thought I would quilt the piece and post it:

I was playing with paint sticks and created boundaries with masking tape in order to sample different textures. I added different stitch fills to each of the colored textured area for this fun little (but not little enough for this challenge) piece. I will be finishing this one up for my guild show's miniature sale.

Kathy's Boundaries: Hydrostatic Surface Tension

For as far back as I can remember, I've been intrigued with droplets of water; how they remain separated from each other; and then at some point in their "lifetime" how they roll down or across a surface and eventually merge with other droplets to become larger versions of themselves !

Are there BOUNDARIES that keep them separated from each other ? And what causes them to eventually merge, forming bigger and heavier drops (that is, if they do eventually merge or they remain as separate drops !) 

This phenomenon is called "Surface Tension" or by another definition "Hydrostatic Surface Tension." Google Search provides abundant scientific information about this subject ... probably more information than I could ever read and / or understand !

A Google Image search for "water drops" provided extraordinarily beautiful sources of inspiration !  [Thank You  Google !]

I used hand-dyed silk for the background of this quilt, then mounted the quilt on 2 layers of batting to provide extra depth.  To separate the "rows" for the droplets, I used Madeira and Sulky metallic threads to create vertical columns in random widths.

And then the fun began !   Using "Swarovski" Crystals, and other purchased "Hot Fix" notions, I used my Hot Fix heat tool to apply each of the 'water droplets' onto the background .... one little, tiny piece at a time !    Seen in just the right kind of light, the crystals, et al glimmer and shine just like tiny water droplets.

A close-up

Candace's Boundaries

Boundaries can be changed. Starting with straight lines (boundaries) , then arcs with the lines then skewing the lines. Then the brilliant colors also "outside the lines". A play of randomly pieced fabrics. As Matisse said " Great art makes it's own rules".

Boundaries - Teresa Schlabach

Boundaries - by Teresa Schlabach - this piece says it all.  I love photographing animals.  I was visiting a zoo in Arizona when I looked over at the monkey cage and this monkey looked right at me.  He looked so sad to be in a cage.  I love going to the zoo, but I have mixed feelings about caging the animals.  They have to live within their boundaries.  I know there are some animals the zoo is a safe haven for,  but other animals should be roaming free.  I printed the photo on silk, thread painted it and quilted the background.  I did not stitch the fence.

Gail's Boundaries--Bound by Color

 

Our lives have many boundaries without which we would all sink into chaos! It is said that "art imitates life", so...does this mean art also has boundaries? We certainly experience limits to our quilting.  In this challenge I have endeavored to work within the boundary of COLOR, not my usual modus operandi. Teresa Schlabach gave me a delectable package of fabrics and trims last Xmas in beautiful shades of deep aqua and sea foam.  Dyed velvet, cotton, organza, burlap, cheesecloth, beads, ribbon, and floss all contributed to my enjoyment in making this abstract piece. Machine and hand stitched 12/12 quilt entitled "Bound by Color".  Thank you Mavens for allowing me to be part of this inspiring group.